The Mortal Cyclops
by RedneckPlasticFlamingo
Summary: Three will go west to the City of Rome, bringing a monster to Neptune's home. One shall perish in battle, alone. Poseidon's son will stand to atone. He is the other mortal child, fated to bemoan. (CHB vs SPQR), (spoilers for HOO,) (Tyson, Clarisse, and Grover-centric,) (NO SLASH.)


**A/N: The characters and plot in this story are written as they are portrayed in the movies, but because I love Clarisse La Rue, this will definitely go past _Sea of Monsters_ a great deal. There also won't be much of Percy or other PJO mainstays ********past this chapter for a while, and ****I have a feeling that it'll get a little darker in the future. So jump on. :)**

* * *

Clarisse La Rue had to knock on the door of Grover's hut nine times before he answered. She was panting, out of breath, and somewhere in the back of her mind she was dreading the sweat stains that soaked her underarms, chest, and back. She didn't know what she was thinking, full-on running across Camp Half-Blood in a long-sleeved shirt and jeans, but she thanked the gods that the shirt was thin, at least. The leather of her heavy satchel brought sweat to the side of one of her thighs.

She pounded on the wood again, this time harder as she bent to the side to take a look through the satyr's dirty window. She saw a head of unruly black hair belonging to a person who was sitting upright in fabric chair, and when he turned his head, a pair of cyan-blue eyes revealed themselves to Ares' daughter, a person who didn't particularly care for Percy Jackson. Clarisse tore her gaze from his, banging insistently on the dark wood._ "Grover!"_

"You should get the door," said a female voice, soft and wise. It was muffled through the wood, but Clarisse could hear it clearly enough to calm herself down for a moment.

"I'm not doing anything when she's banging like that."

Whatever calm she'd collected evaporated into thin mist, and she pounded the side of her fist into the door another time. "You've got to be _kidding_ me," she growled. The sound of her voice was vicious and threatening, the same voice she'd oftentimes find herself using in battle. She slid down her fist, and her palm opened against the wood, the cool door calming her as she took deep, long breaths to restrain herself from beating it down. The wood was so flimsy that with Clarisse's training, a few swift kicks would literally create a gaping hole straight through the middle.

Percy Jackson's voice was a mumble through the door, but with her forehead to the wood, Clarisse could hear it clearly enough. "Get the door, Grover," the demigod was uttering. Clarisse breathed a prayer of thanks, easing her eyes shut against the exhaustion that pained her muscles. "It might be important."

Grover cursed under his breath. The clicks of his hooves were muffled through the wooden door, but the clumsy movement of oversized feet was clear as day. "Tyson, you need to stay. I got this," Grover assured.

For a moment, there was a pause of all sound from beyond the door, and Clarisse was left alone with the sound of her ragged breaths and the typical noises from within the barriers of Camp Half Blood. There was a voice too soft that chimed through the wood, and even to Clarisse, it was quite familiar. She could imagine the gracious smile and the one, bright periwinkle eye that accompanied it. "I'm coming." Tyson's grin was audible, nearly. "I won't do anything; I just want to say hello to her."

Another pregnant silence. The clicking of cloven hooves resumed, and Grover yanked open the door, pulling it to his chest and peering at the brown-haired demigod from a gap so skinny that Clarisse could find it not only irritating, but comical. "What?" Hissed the satyr. From behind his average stature with a milky blue eye, a tall, lumbering Tyson was waving a fairly large hand in Clarisse's direction, a shy smile made of his lips and a messy blonde dreadlock peeking in the way of his face. Clarisse returned the gesture with an awkward, rather bemused smile and a wiggle of her fingers, but the cyclops seemed highly pleased with it.

Grover glanced between the two of them, his brown eyes wide and searching."Nuh-uh," he blinked. Clarisse couldn't help the drop of her jaw when she read his boggled expression. Sputtering, her mouth opening and closing with fragments of words, she watched as Grover cast his eyes between herself and the Tyson a second time. "You did _not_ just pound on my door manically so you could flirt with the cyclops."

"'The Cyclops?'" Tyson repeated, taking offense.

The brunette rolled her eyes at Grover, and stepped a foot forward when the satyr pushed the door open wider, backing away slightly with cloven hooves. He revealed himself wearing a black tank top, leaving the dark skin of his torso very visible and his furry satyr legs in full sight. He asked sarcastically with expectant eyes, "What, that's not what you came here for?" Clarisse remained set in her cold features, and the satyr let his gaze drift to the ground in something like resignation. "Well, whatever you've gotta say, it'd better be the most exciting thing I've heard in my life to justify you beating on my door like that."

Clarisse snorted indignantly. "Trust me, I could have busted through the wood if I wanted to."

Grover let his gaze soften. With dark brown eyes, he looked over the daughter of Ares, tracing her figure in a manner that would have made her restless had she been without the ability to pull her spear on him. Skimming his body with cold silver eyes, Clarisse thought to herself that she'd seen Grover look better before, but seeing as she wasn't a child of Aphrodite, she rightfully didn't give a hoot or a holler. "Well..." Grover scrunched his nose, and behind him, Tyson wiped at his eye with the sleeve of his hooded jacket. "What's up with all the dripping?" Grover asked.

"Oh, I only ran through the majority of camp to come find you," Clarisse blurted, still breathing heavily and short of breath from the run. "It took me three huts to find yours, and they were all like, a mile apart," She breathed. She stuck three fingers in the air to make herself clear. "_Three_. And then on top of that, it took you damn near an hour to answer the door—"

"I'm sorry—who was it that came kicking on the wood like a mad woman?"

Clarisse glowered. "I didn't _kick_ it, Grover."

"Gee, that's odd," the satyr began, feigning surprise with wide brown eyes, "It sure sounded like you did. Didn't it, Perce?" Grover cocked his head toward his living room, listening closely with goat-like ears for an answer from Jackson.

Poseidon's son turned strong blue eyes from a card game on the table, and his fingers stopped in their fiddling with Zeus' cardboard image. It was obvious by the number of cards on Annabeth's end of the table that Percy was losing, but Jackson didn't seem fazed in the slightest. "I'm not in this," the demigod said. With a faint smile on her lips, Annabeth glanced at him with startling blue eyes as his gaze returned to the table.

Grover sighed in exasperation. "He _means_ yes."

"Okay... Grover, forget about that," Clarisse told him. Within a moment, her eyes grew cold, serious, and she crossed sleeved arms over her chest to enforce Grover's focus. "I need you for a quest, Grover. It's not mine, but..." her eyes shifted to Tyson who stood beside the satyr, making the cloven man look small with the height of his hulking figure. She cleared her throat. "Chiron pulled me aside this morning, and he told me something about Tyson."

Grover's dark eyes grew wide, and Tyson's jaw fell as he listened in. "What he told me... even _I _can understand that it might change everything. I followed his orders to visit the Oracle, and the prophecy she gave me has something to do with him. Tyson, I mean. There's some 'lost' person we're supposed to meet during the quest, and... The only thing I'm certain of is that Tyson's presence during this quest is vital."

Clarisse moved her gaze to Grover, who seemed to be mulling over her words with his mouth agape, his eyes still and searching. "I—I'll come with you," Tyson spoke. As he spoke to Ares's daughter, his voice was soft, but in his wide eye was an excited milky blue color, one that seemed to freeze Clarisse into place with a strange auora. "Since you need me, I'll come."

His delicate lips began to curve into a smile, and Clarisse brought a fist to her lips, clearing her throat weakly. "Thanks," she told him. She dragged out the word in a rather awkward manner, but then attempted to not dwell on it for long. She averted her gaze from the cyclops, her fingers finding a new fascination in the strap of her satchel, suddenly. The leather was smooth, dark, warm under the light of the sun, but the bag felt heavier than ever strapped over her chest.

Grover adopted an expression of alarm, his dark brown brows furrowing like worms in dirt. "How—" he began.

"I'll explain," Clarisse said. She caught sight of the demigods behind Grover, each of whom were trying not to make it obvious that they were listening in. She could tell by the way they shifted their eyes, whispering among themselves, and she looked Grover straight in the face. "Just not here," she mouthed.

When Grover took a peek behind him, he didn't miss the way the trio of other demigods' eyes seemed to flutter from his back the instant he looked. Tyson's gaze followed, and Grover tossed Clarisse a clumsy wink that made the brunette die a little inside just at how ridiculous he was. She nodded, passing it off as a nonchalant glance at the sky, and the satyr cleared his throat loudly. "Hey, Clarisse," Grover practically yelled. The daughter of Ares wanted to palm her face but couldn't, for obvious reasons. "Some other satyr is out getting those two Hades kids in place of me, so, uh, I think I can help you out."

Annabeth captured the people in the doorway almost immediately with her spotlight stare. "Demigods?" She interrupted. Her eyes resembled those of an owl almost perfectly.

"They found more," Thalia muttered. She was sitting across from Percy with a card of Artemis' picture in her frozen hands, showing signs of a raging storm behind her luminous blue eyes.

Grover gave a much-too-cliche snap of his fingers. "Dang it, Thalia, I was just about to say that." He earned himself two pairs of frigid, confused eyes from Annabeth and Thalia, and Percy palmed his forehead ever so slowly, easing his blue eyes shut as if a terrible headache was stirring in the back of his head.

Annabeth cleared her throat, biting on her tongue to hide a blooming smile. "Erm... Ahem. You didn't take the job?"

"What can I say? I needed a vacation," Grover told her, his lips cracking a smile at the attention. "And I wanted to get in some time with Thalia before I took on any jobs, 'cause, frankly, it's been a looong time, girl, you hear me?" He flashed a wide grin toward the daughter of Zeus, who, with a stormy gaze, weakly returned his grin.

A tinge of jealousy sparked in Clarisse's blood as she watched the exchange with a cold, silvery gaze. She understood more than anyone in the room how it felt to lose a soldier, and not once were _they_ resurrected. But, really, was life supposed to be fair? She remembered how Percy defeated her father in battle, and let her frozen eyes drift down to Grover's cloven hooves. She supposed that no, it wasn't.

Percy dropped his cards to the wood where they slid over each other a few inches, and he turned to Annabeth with challenging blue eyes. "We should go after them," he blurted. He garnered a few stares from around the hut with his sudden enthusiasm, and his brother was tuned in heavily to his words. "You know, make sure they get to Camp Half-Blood safely. We'll be the heroes should anything happen."

"They're in high school, right?" Annabeth asked. She got this strange look in her silvery blue eyes that said she was concocting a plan to help her trio, and Clarisse considered the question.

"Yeah." Percy's satyr friend, Grover, waved a hand in what Clarisse assumed was the school's general direction. "It's somewhere around there...somewhere. It isn't a task for me anymore, so I wouldn't know, but it's definitely over there somewhere."

Clarisse couldn't hold the snort that escaped her nostrils at the unhelpful observation. "Thanks," she said, rubbing a hand into the satyr's cotton-like hair, and a gel-like substance clung in tiny drips to her fingers. She scrunched her nose at the feeling. "You're so helpful, Grover, you know that?"

"Ha." Grover knocked her hand away and kneaded his fingers through the shaved hair angrily. "_Not_ funny, Clarisse. It took me ten minutes to fix this stuff."

Tyson was grinning shyly, and he raised five long fingers in the air, tentatively lifting another hand, His smile fell. "Erm... _Ten,_" he sputtered. Clarisse raised her eyebrows at Grover, who was still fidgeting over his hair. _Oh. So he can count, _she thought, and there was absolutely nothing about Grover's obsessive grooming that managed to have her shocked further.

Tyson suddenly narrowed his blue eye. "Brother," he blurted, and the Sea Prince looked at him with his similar eyes widened. Thalia didn't look up much from her trading cards. "I have an idea," continued the cyclops. "You can get the information from Mr. D. or Chiron. If they find out you're trying to leave camp, you're toast, but, uh... You've done worse, haven't you, brother?"

There was a pause for thought, because it was true, Percy _had_ done worse, but everyone in the room adopted the wildest expression of surprise. Annabeth seemed especially impressed, and struggled to reach her words. "So, uhh... we'll ask Chiron?" she stumbled. Her voice was high at the end; more of a question than a statement. As her fingers inched over to cover Percy's hand on the table, Clarisse watched with smug eyes and a smirk on her lips. "Percy, do you think your mother can give us a ride?"

The Sea Prince's blue eyes gravitated to his hand in a slow, hypnotized manner. Clarisse found it hilariously ironic that Jackson looked like a fish out of water with his mouth hung agape like it was. "Yeah, uhh... Sure. Yes. She can." Thalia rolled her eyes, stormy and blue, and Grover copied the gesture.

Clarisse gave a huff until she saw with silver eyes that Tyson's lips were curved into a smile. She didn't know why that changed her mood, but something inside of her made her want to smile too. And she did. Whatever the reason, it made her feel better, plain and simple, about... things. Then Grover's voice happened again, and she felt her smile fade immediately. Gods.

"So," The satyr began in an awkward fashion. He rubbed the palms of his hands together, pursing his lips apologetically as he swept his eyes over the trio. "I'm gonna need you guys to go, 'cause I've gotta get ready for this quest thing. Apparently it's big, since Clarisse needs me for it." Percy allowed a smirk to crawl across his thin lips.

"A quest for what?" Annabeth questioned. Her eyes grew curious and seemed to glow as she eyed the satyr.

"I—that's not any of your business, alright, know-it-all?" Clarisse responded a little too harshly. Grover's eyes sneaked over to the brunette, whose body was frozen into a fit, light-skinned rod on his doorstep. Clarisse wiped a bead of sweat from her face, gulping as Annabeth cast a suspicious glance at Percy's side. It wasn't an unusual thing for Clarisse to be rude, but the sudden, fidgety movements that went along with it were anything but natural when it came to Ares' daughter, who was something of a friend to their group. "We need to go, Grover."

Percy stood from his chair, eyeing Clarisse briefly. "You're taking Tyson, right?"

Clarisse sent a glance Tyson's way, greeted by a soft blue eye that peered back at her. "Yeah, we're taking Tyson," she told Percy. She cleared her throat. "The quest... calls for a cyclops, you know?" And surprisingly, Percy nodded, walking toward his brother with a smile made of his lips as he wrapped his arms around the cyclops.

Tyson returned the hug graciously, and the brothers murmured words of parting into each other's necks as the other two demigods rose from their seats to part ways with Grover. Something in the satyr's eyes was curious and skittish when he looked at Clarisse, like he could guess why Tyson was _really_ needed. But Ares' daughter didn't want to think of what the look might have been—and probably was—implying.

The full truth was oftentimes not meant for even the worthiest of demigods to learn. And in this case, Thalia, Percy, and Annabeth, who most likely could be seen as 'the worthiest of demigods,' were not quite worthy enough.

**o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o**

"So, you have a can of that spray mist stuff, right?"

Clarisse looked funnily at Grover, who was hobbling across the dirt ground on crutches as they walked the path to the Big House. The evening was early, and as scattered crowds of demigods made their ways to the cabins from classes and clubs, the trio was managing to mill through without garnering a whole lot of unwanted attention. "I don't know why you're worrying about disguises so much, Goat Boy," Clarisse told the satyr.

Apparently, that wasn't the response Grover'd been looking for, because he shot her a tired glare from beneath the beanie hat he was wearing to hide his blooming horns. "Hey, lady, it's Goat _Man_ to you," he scolded. Clarisse nearly would have smiled if she hadn't been in a serious mood. _Goat Man?_ Really? It sounded like a lame-ass superhero to her.

But she kept quiet and watched from the corner of her view as Grover's eyes grew hooded. A small group of Aphrodite girls were passing by on the wide dirt trail, giggling and twirling bits of perfect hair around their manicured fingers. Clarisse gave an irritable roll of her silver eyes. Grover was grinning stupidly at the girls until they passed, and only then did he turn right back to the daughter of Ares with that stern, anything-but-threatening glare made of his dark eyes for a second time.

The brunette groaned at him. A yard behind her stood Tyson with his milky blue eye hidden behind a pair of black shades. He was just looking around, judging by how much he was turning his head. "If it makes you feel any better, Goat Man," Clarisse began, "I've got like, twenty drachmas from a bet I won against Sherman a few weeks ago."

Grover looked skeptical. He took a brief moment to think, his dark eyes drifting down to his dangling shoes as he walked on his crutches. "I don't see how it matters that you've got drachmas," He told her, glancing into her silver eyes from the edge of his view. "And who's Sherman?"

"A half-brother of mine," Clarisse forced. In an attempt to flush down the annoyance that crept forward at his image, her eyes fluttered shut. She wanted to go on about how godsdamned annoying he was, but the brunette was convinced that any fellow child of Ares was a soldier, and therefore deserved as much respect as she was given. She wasn't going to allow herself to dwell on the thought, either. "We'll find a shop," she told the satyr. "There, we can buy everything Tyson needs to stay hidden, and he can wear those shades until then. You know, to hide his eye. That okay with you?" She asked, glancing at him as they walked on.

Grover scoffed. "Alright," he mumbled, but the satyr seemed far from convinced. He pulled his things farther over his shoulder and the red college backpack blended nearly perfectly with the hooded jacket he wore of the same color. The bag was full to the brim of things he'd just shoved inside, and the zipper barely closed over it, its teeth clinging onto each other to hold it all closed. Clarisse assumed it couldn't be any worse than what Tyson had packed. With every step the cyclops took, his messenger bag rattled and clanged loud enough to interrupt her thoughts to the point where strategizing was nearly impossible, especially with ADHD.

The voice was faint over the noise of Clarisse's skittering thoughts, and the daughter of Ares didn't quite collect the meaning of Grover's words, "Clarisse, stop," until the rattle of Tyson's clothing came to a halt behind her. He covered her wrist with his hand, his fingers warm and thick when they wrenched around her. He was gentle, but his hold was just tight enough to make the girl halt in her footsteps. The barrier's energy tickled her senses, sending tingles through her body and raising goosebumps from her sweaty skin.

Clarisse observed the feeling of Tyson's palm, scratchy and tough against her wrist, and she glanced up with silver eyes to see him peering through the lenses. His smile as warm-looking as the orange evening sky. Clarisse couldn't help but notice the soft peach color his cheeks would adopt in the autumn air.

"You haven't told us the prophecy," Tyson told her. He brushed his thumb over Clarisse's hand, and the brunette furrowed her brows at the cyclops, whose brow rose from behind the shades. He brushed his thumb over a scar in her flesh, a question floating behind those lifeless shades. The girl snatched her hand away.

Grover hobbled into the clearing with his dark brown eyes looking darker than usual in the orange light of the torches at the gate. His expression showed the faintest hint of exhaustion, but he was ready, Clarisse knew. As a matter of fact, it would take her awhile to think of a time when he_ wasn't_ prepared. "Tyson isn't lying, 'Claire. You_ haven't_ told us the prophecy."

She shot the satyr a venomous glare. "Don't call me that, Grover. Next time you do, Shades and I will be eating full dinners of Goat Boy stew for the remainder of the quest."

The satyr gave an exasperated roll of his eyes. "Goat _Man," _he corrected.

"Oh my Gods, Grover." Clarisse was drooping under the weight of her satchel. She could feel a mosquito attempt to poke at her neck, and she slapped it away as she positioned herself against the Camp Wall. It was a relief, the pressure flowing from her back, her head propped against the wall, easing all the tension from her sore neck. Grover was hobbling to sit beside her, and Tyson; Tyson was already feet in front of Clarisse, his eyes hidden past his shades, watching the sun as it smoothed from his one-eyed view.

Grover grunted as he plopped beside her, and Clarisse sighed a smile, removing the satchel strap from her neck so she could rub the tension away. "So?" Grover breathed. He was talking past a smile, too, and his voice was breathy and tired. Clarisse removed an empty beer can from a pile of leaves and pushed it into his hand so he could eat it, she guessed. "Ha," he smiled, and he rolled his eyes as he tore a chunk of the metal with his teeth. Tyson looked astonished. "You gonna tell us the prophecy, or have I been Punk'd by a daughter of Ares just now?"

Clarisse laughed a quiet laugh, her smile wide and and almost drunken as she gazed up at the darkening sky. She sobered up and elbowed Grover in the side. "You haven't been Punk'd," she scolded, and for some reason, Tyson smiled to himself. "I wrote it down. The prophecy."

"Yeah I suck at remembering stuff, too," Grover murmured, and he leaned over Clarisse as she pulled a piece of folded parchment from her pocket, holding it high in the light of the blazing torches. She could hear Tyson moving closer to see it, and with a shuffle, she gave him room against the wall.

Grover was squinting his eyes. Clarisse could tell Tyson wasn't getting any of this. With only one eye, his eyesight probably wasn't very spectacular to begin with. "I can read it for you," she offered, and Grover chuckled, leaning in closer.

"Yeah, do that," he almost grinned. Clarisse could smell his cologne, deep, strong, and musty to her side. A headache began to pound into her skull. She noticed that the cyclops' scent was much lighter beside her; almost like salt and brimstone, a hint of steel, a hint of something plant-like and natural. Both scents served to distract her from the words she'd scribbled at the Big House.

"Okay," she muttered. Her breath was catching, and tight in her throat just at the thought of reliving the strangeness. The daughter of Ares was never, _ever _scared or frightened. She gulped, glancing to each of her sides. "Ready?" she asked. But she didn't await an answer from either of Percy's boys. The torchlight was dim, the flame shadows flickering over the paper in easy strokes and gasps of light, but Clarisse could barely understand a word.

Eventually, of course, she did, the faint image of a croaky voice itching at her memory; the same voice she softly echoed, almost timid and _scared. _She remembered the emptiness in those soulless blue eyes and the wicked crows feet that surrounded them almost like evil wreaths.

_"Three will go west to the City of Rome,_

_Bringing a monster to Neptune's home_

_One shall perish in battle, alone_

_Poseidon's son will stand to atone," _

She read the words aloud, and the look in Grover's eyes was concentrated, but somehow distant and bemused. Clarisse saw the look in the satyr's eyes grow grim before she finished.

_"He is the other mortal child_

_Fated to bemoan"_

Musty, thick air. Thin, pale fingers moving subtly against a tattered grey dress, half devoured by sleepless moths and half just rotted away like the abandoned logs of a dead tree. Clarisse shuddered, and though this edge of the forest was breathable, she found her lungs in pain with a lack of air. _  
_

Tyson was bending closer to her and she shrunk away. Her shoulder pressed into the satyr's jacket. She felt Grover huff close to her hair and she moved away right when the flicker of a flame brought to life a hurried scribble that lived in black ink near the bottom of her parchment, torn, clenched softly between sore fingers.

"MMMCCLXXXVII MILLE PASSUS." The words were foreign to her, but they rolled off her tongue. Like a wave of lukewarm water, all things Roman. She was pretty sure she hated it.

"What are those?"

"Coordinates," Grover answered without a flick of his eyes from the page in concentration, and Tyson's timid finger moved away. The satyr glanced at Clarisse, and his brows were high, like he was ready; pumped. "Right? Directions. We'll follow that path, get the muses to drive us, maybe a translator or sumthin'." He looked out at the sky, watched the falling sun as if greeting Apollo with a brief touch of contact. "Yeah, _yeah,"_ he murmured.

"Guys, we_ got_ this. We got this; let's go."

Clarisse's voice was lost as her legs, asleep, caught up to meet the rising figure, and she thought that if she could speak, her voice would be dry and itchy. "Already?" Tyson asked. He looked just as lost on this as Clarisse was, and his eyes were on the ground as he thought, his voice a murmur.

"Yeah," Grover said, breathless. He was shoving the can into some random holder in his backpack. "Percy and I had a Latin teacher back in boarding school. She was evil, but," he shrugged. His bag was tossed onto his shoulder, looking heavier than ever over his jacketed self. "There were things she was really strict on in that class, and directions were one of them."

Clarisse's eyes glittered in a half glare at being jerked up so quickly. "So, what did it —"

"3287 miles. West, I think." Clarisse's eyes lit up. Tyson stood behind her, looking about to overflow with questions. "The number translates to 3022 in English." The satyr's eyes flicked from Thalia's tree and back. Again. The darkness in his brows became something of a quiet nervousness. "What? We need to cross this barrier now, before _all_ our light is gone."

It took a bit of banter with Clarisse, a steady flow of off-and-on questions from Tyson before they truly got anywhere with Grover's "plan." They were in the Muses' taxi, Clarisse for the first time in a year, Grover and Tyson having ridden less than a few weeks earlier. The stars were high and the trio pressed close in the batty backseat while a single eye was tossed precariously between the other trio of Goddesses in the front, each of whom were spurting questions all too personal for Clarisse to feel comfortable at all. Like if she and the goat had "things" going on or if it was a 'love triangle' like in a book they'd all been obsessed with a year earlier.

Ares' greatest daughter tried not to let it matter. Where the hell _were_ they?


End file.
